nd that Bunter was noticeable
enough.

If it had not been for the quietness of his movements, for the general
soberness of his demeanour, one would have given him credit for a
fiercely passionate nature.

Of course, he was not in his first youth; but if the expression "in the
force of his age" has any meaning, he realized it completely. He was
a tall man, too, though rather spare. Seeing him from his poop
indefatigably busy with his duties, Captain Ashton, of the clipper
ship _Elsinore_, lying just ahead of the _Sapphire_, remarked once to a
friend that "Johns has got somebody there to hustle his ship along for
him."

Captain Johns, master of the _Sapphire_, having commanded ships for
many years, was well known without being much respected or liked. In the
company of his fellows he was either neglected or chaffed. The chaffing
was generally undertaken by Captain Ashton, a cynical and teasing sort
of man. It was Captain Ashton who permitted himself the unpleasant joke
of proclaiming once in company that "Johns is of the opinion that every
sailor above forty years of age ought to be poisoned--shipmasters in
actual command excepted."

It was in a City restaurant, where several well-known shipmasters were
having lunch together. There was Captain Ashton, florid and jovial, in a
large white waistcoat and with a yellow rose in his buttonhole; Captain
Sellers in a sack-coat, thin and pale-faced, with his iron-gray hair
tucked behind his ears, and, but for the absence of spectacles, looking
like an ascetical mild man of books; Captain Hell, a bluff sea-dog with
hairy fingers, in blue serge and a black felt hat pushed far back off
his crimson forehead. There was also a very young shipmaster, with
a little fair moustache and serious eyes, who said nothing, and only
smiled faintly from time to time.

Captain Johns, very much startled, raised his perplexed and credulous
glance, which, together with a low and horizontally wrinkled brow, did
not make a very intellectual _ensemble_. This impression was by no means
mended by the slightly pointed form of his bald head.

Everybody laughed outright, and, thus guided, Captain Johns ended by
smiling rather sourly, and attempted to defend himself. It was all very
well to joke, but nowadays, when ships, to pay anything at all, had to
be driven hard on the passage and in harbour, the sea was no place for
elderly men. Only young men and men in their prime were equal to modern
conditions